Hyderabad: People are facing many difficulties in getting financial aid under Shaadi Mubarak Scheme due to stringent conditions. It is not possible for a poor person to fulfill all those conditions.

Civil Society has demanded the government to amend the conditions to benefit the applicants.

Mr. S.Q. Masood, Joint Secretary of Association for Socio-Economic Empowerment of the Marginalized made a representation to Principal Secretary, Dept. of Minorities Welfare to relax the conditions imposed in GO Ms 25 dated 16th July 2016 in which the responsibility of inquiries of the applications have been entrusted to Mandal Revenue Officers. It is causing a lot of delay. Mandal Revenue Officers, in order to shirk their responsibilities, are commissioning the services of middlemen for making inquiries. These persons are demanding Rs. 5-10 thousands for getting the applications processed.

As per the conditions for the grant of financial assistance under this scheme, the applicants have to produce birth certificate, bonafide certificate from the school, rental deed, recommendation letter from religious institution and marriage certificate whereas there is no mention of these documents in the said GO.

Mr. Masood further told that when Qazi performs Nikah, he accepts the entries of Aadhaar Card as the proof of age and he does not insist on any other birth certificate.

In processing the applications, MRO, MLA, RDO and District Minority Welfare Officer are involved which makes the process delayed.

The GO stipulates that the cheques of the scheme would be distributed at Mandal Headquarters by the concerned MLAs. This decision of the Govt. is nothing but waste of time since most of the MLAs are not available every week, as a result of which many cheques get accumulated in Mandal office.

Mr. Masood demanded that the scrutiny of applications should be entrusted to the vigilance committee and action should be taken against middlemen. The role of MLA should be confined to monitoring of the scheme. They should be freed from making recommendations and distribution of cheques. He also requested the government to credit the amounts sanctioned into the bank accounts of the beneficiaries directly.